How Every Dental Marketer Should Use Call Tracking

Call tracking solutions can provide value across a wide range of industries, and any business that sells over the phone can benefit. As an example, let’s look at how dentists can use call tracking to discover which marketing efforts are bringing in new patients.

Calculating Lifetime Value

As in any healthcare-related service, new patients are valuable. So just how much is a new dental patient worth? A survey conducted by The Wealthy Dentist placed the average annual patient value at between $900-$1,200. Over the course of ten years, a new patient could easily be worth $10,000 (and more depending on their individual habits).

But how much does it cost to get each new patient? That’s the question that few can answer. Depending on the size of the practice and their speciality, dentists invariably invest in websites, paid search ads, billboards and social media sites like Yelp. But if their marketing budget is limited—and whose isn’t?—then it is just as important to invest in tools that can help you maximize impact.

How Call Tracking Can Help Any Dentist

Even if you’re using a tool like Google Analytics to track which online channels patients see before filling out a lead form on your website, it’s impossible to be truly confident with your marketing investments unless you have visibility into which efforts cause your phone to ring. For most medical professionals, the brunt of new patients make appointments over the phone. With a call tracking solution, you can quickly provision unique numbers that can be assigned to your fliers, website, radio ads, billboards, social media channels, and more. The second a new patient calls to book an appointment, you’ll know whether they found you through Yelp, heard an ad on the radio or searched Google for “good dentists in Seattle.”

Refine Your Messaging

Call tracking gives you the power to refine your messaging. If you know what keywords people were searching for before calling you, do you think you could create better web content? By optimizing your content around terms that are proven to convert, you can optimize your web content to attract more organic visitors.

You can also use call tracking to find out which of your ads are resonating with new patients. For example you might be running two TV ads, one with a child talking about her experience at your office, and another in which you are talking about your practice. By utilizing a call tracking system, you might discover that the message with the child connects more with your target audience. You can therefore invest more in that ad.

The Power of Salesforce.com Integration

While most call tracking solutions can help you see which channels are delivering the most calls, RingDNA goes the extra step of seamlessly integrating with your Salesforce.com CRM. With one click you can associate a RingDNA tracking with a Salesforce.com campaign. The result is real-time insight into which marketing efforts and keywords are driving the best returns. You’ll know instantly how much revenue was created from each ad you place. And you can therefore adjust your marketing budget in real time to spend more on efforts you know are working.

Why Specialists Need To Pay Closer Attention

Specialists, such as cosmetic dentists, often stand to gain the most from marketing solutions. Most specialists don’t build their practice on establishing long-term relationships with patients. Instead, specialists need to acquire a higher volume of new patients who deliver more value up front rather than over the long term. Specialists like cosmetic dentists therefore are more dependent on marketing since they need to attract a higher volume of new leads. For this reason, it’s extra important for specialists to ensure that their marketing dollars are being spent wisely.

Whatever type of dentistry you practice (or even if you aren’t a dentist), you could likely benefit from the marketing insight that a call tracking solution can afford you. Check out our whitepaper, Call Tracking: Definitive Buyers Guide, to see more ways that call tracking can help you optimize your marketing budget.

About the Author

Jesse Davis is a sales and marketing strategist and Sr. Content Marketing Manager at RingDNA. Over the past decade, Davis has honed his business communications skills working as an inside sales manager, business writer and agency marketer. He is a proponent of utilizing platform technology and evidence-based methodologies to optimize creative campaigns, marketing ROI and sales performance.

About the Author

Jesse Davis is a sales and marketing strategist and Sr. Content Marketing Manager at RingDNA. Over the past decade, Davis has honed his business communications skills working as an inside sales manager, business writer and agency marketer. He is a proponent of utilizing platform technology and evidence-based methodologies to optimize creative campaigns, marketing ROI and sales performance.